New fretting jig

I was fretting (PUN!) about how to cut fret slots in the small "island style" piccolo necks. No fretboard means the 12th fret exactly at neck-body connection, and the rest of the frets relative to the 12th. And since I lack in precision in my appartment practice, fitting the neck often means fiddling with it's length and angles. Two angles in island style, since it mustn't be parallell to the soundboard.

So if I were to cut frets 1 - 11 in the jig on the table saw, the distance between 11 and 12 would be screwed during neck fitting. So..! I needed an in-situ fret slot jig.



After the super toxic "glue" (more like straight poison) had cured, I cut marks with a scalpel with the help of a glued-on caliper. Since the cuts could be seen straight through the perspex I could aim and cut the slot on the table saw using my 0.5 mm blade.



And away we go. My new material for side position markers will be good for fretboard markers, and now they serve as positioning brads holding the jig while sawing the slots with a thin blade hand saw.



I went with perspex because of the precision and because it looks cool, but quickly realized the jig was a lot easier both to make and use since I can see what's happening.

Merry christmas / Sven

Pity we don't live near each other Sven - with your brains and my hand skills and workshop we could clean up in Europe...

Thanks Pete - I'll keep a visit to your shop on top of my to-do-list. It has been there a while now.

Sven

Very clever, Sven--for some reason, the making of jigs intimidates me. Probably because I see them as being "extra precise" where I have trouble enough getting to "precise" as it is! I'm going to have to get over that real soon, as I'll be attempting my first real builds the first of the new year. I need to put together a jig to keep everything inline as I build and clamp, etc.

Hey, I see you're using the same bench vice Pete recommended in one of his videos. What brand is that, again?

Zyliss! very similar to this:

http://www.advmachinery.com/default.asp?pg=products&specific=joeqcqk0

Jigs are great. And as I wrote, I really need them.

Sven

Hey Sven, looks like the slotting saw with depth stop from StewMac would be the perfect compliment to your slotting rig. Just thought I'd point that out. I have one, and it is a nice saw/setup indeed.

Thanks Matt, I just drew a black line at the side of my saw. Thought of glueing a scrap piece of wood on it, it's a saw I only use for cutting those slots. But the black line works quite nicely for now.

I have to limit my oversea orders, it's so expensive with taxes and s**t at the swedish border. First a tax based on the value of the goods. Then, a handling fee! That's outrageous.

Sven

What if you tell them the customer is part Swedish? That helps right?